abnormal HEAT problems

the other day i noticed that my laptop was abnormally hot on my lap, mostly coming from the left side of the laptop. i have a T61 from 2-3 years ago

i'm back home now and using my docking station, and twice within 2 weeks, windows has randomly entered sleep mode. i get a blue shutdown screen saying, "windows is preparing to sleep." it then sleeps and i cannot re-awake it. i have to forcibly shut down the comp with the power button.

i did a search, it seems this left part of the laptop is the CPU location? i download TPfancontrol, i'm getting these results:

CPU 68°C (0x78)
APS 50°C (0x79)
PCM 44°C (0x7a)
GPU 69°C (0x7b)
BUS 47°C (0xc0)
PCI 52°C (0xc1)
PWR 60°C (0xc2)

i dont know what normal cpu temperatures should be. could my cpu fan/heatsink be broken? and these temperatures are when this computer has just been on for a half hour now, it doesnt seem to hot when i touch it. so the temps could be getting much higher those other times..

 

which CPU and GPU model do you have?

You can check whether the sleep problem is fan/heatsink related by downloading and running Prime95, and see whether your fan can keep the CPU cool enough to prevent a thermal overload shutdown.

 

core2duo t7300 @ 2.00ghz
nvidia quadro nvs 140m


i just booted and TPfancontrol says:

CPU 62°C (0x78)
GPU 64°C (0x7b)


after 5 minutes of Prime95:

CPU 93°C (0x78)
APS 53°C (0x79)
PCM 46°C (0x7a)
GPU 86°C (0x7b)
BUS 54°C (0xc0)
PCI 56°C (0xc1)
PWR 74°C (0xc2)


after 15 minutes of Prime95:

CPU 98°C (0x78)
APS 59°C (0x79)
PCM 52°C (0x7a)
GPU 91°C (0x7b)
BUS 62°C (0xc0)
PCI 63°C (0xc1)
PWR 80°C (0xc2)




ill check the temps next time i notice when the thing is really hot

 

try to clean the heatsink and fan on the laptop, by taking off the palmrest and keyboard, then use a can of compressed air to blow out any dusts stuck in the heat vent and on the fan (make sure you hold down the fan vanes when you are doing this).

95 to 100 degrees is the triggering point for thermal overload shutdown (which is what you were experiencing before).

 

probably has to do with the faulty nvidia chip recall problems.

 

what is this about? i never heard of it.. what should i do?

 

Do you have a warranty? Try getting it repaired by Lenovo. Basically Nvidia had a major manufacturing malfunction and it's causing many (or maybe most, or maybe all) GPUs manufactured at the time to fail prematurely.

 

this problem is not GPU related.

 

Well, without CPU load, the GPU seems hotter than the CPU, so it might?!

 

I would actually open the unit and give the whole CPU heatsink a good clean as well as applying some good thermal paste in for good measure. Having idle temps in the 60s seem a tad too hot for my liking and gives you little room should the CPU stress out. The T7300 T-Junction is 100c max so 98c is way too close to dangerous levels hence the random shutdowns.

If you're running Power Manager then as a temporary measure you can customise the settings to make the CPU run at lower clocks to cool the CPU down, avoid using the Maximum Performance setting as that will ramp up the heat from the components.

 

Looks like some dust buildup on vents, grills, etc. Could be a faulty fan too.
I'd start a major cleanup first.

 

do what everyone has said. rip the cpu fan out, give it a good clean (and use a pick to scrape off dust that is inside). Apply arctic silver 5 thermal paste (not that expensive!).

All my old laptops get really hot even if there isn't dust. It's simply a matter of the thermal paste drying up over time - there's nothing you can do to prevent this. One of my fans had NO dust inside but it was still overheating, again I reapplied the thermal paste and it shut up immediately.